I'm so addicted to this hobby...I'ts warming up here in southern Arizona. Got into the low 90s two days ago. The desert is in bloom with all manner of wild flowers. The citris groves have all been picked and pruned back, except for what looks like tangelos. You still see groves of bright orange here and there. Huge fields of every kind of lettuce imaginable are now being harvested. These were the brown dirt fields that stretched as far as the eye could see and made this place look so ugly and desolate when Imoved here last summer. But they've been all shades of beautiful green ever since December.Little roadside fruit standshave beenpopping up all over. All manner of citris, dates,and strawberries can be purchased from the tailgate of any number of pickup trucks.
And so it happens that I was finally unable to resist temptation any longer. I stopped at a roadside stand and bought a half case of bright red strawberries. Looked up a recipe for strawberry wine on Jack Keller's website and plunged in with both feet. That was last weekend, and the strawberry is in secondary now. But I must confess, it didn't end there. Yesterday we were grocery shopping, and somehow three bags of mandarin oranges found their way into our cart. Well, I squeezed two of those bags last night and pitched the yeast on a batch of mandarin orange wine this morning.
But of course I have questions. I have a little bottle of pectic enzyme that I bought when I first started making kit winesthis pastOctober. I'd never opened it until I needed it for the strawberry batch last weeked. But now I read that it's very perishable and should have been refrigerated. Should Ithrow it out and get a powdered form? And I read Waldo's post about steaming strawberries to extract the juice. How does that work? I have a similar looking pot that I'm using for a primary on these one-gal batches. It came with a basket inside that has holes around the sides, but I didn't know what it was for. Is this a steamer pot? If so, how do I collect the juice? Finally, I've used Pastuer Red yeast for both of these trial batches, but I've been reading up on other yeasts as well. Apparently, you can use yeast that doesn't ferment completely dry, leaving a sweeter finished wine. Does this approach work, or should I just back-sweeten?
Sorry for the long novel and all the questions. Sometimes I get in the mood to write and I just can't seem to stop myself.
Ken
And so it happens that I was finally unable to resist temptation any longer. I stopped at a roadside stand and bought a half case of bright red strawberries. Looked up a recipe for strawberry wine on Jack Keller's website and plunged in with both feet. That was last weekend, and the strawberry is in secondary now. But I must confess, it didn't end there. Yesterday we were grocery shopping, and somehow three bags of mandarin oranges found their way into our cart. Well, I squeezed two of those bags last night and pitched the yeast on a batch of mandarin orange wine this morning.
But of course I have questions. I have a little bottle of pectic enzyme that I bought when I first started making kit winesthis pastOctober. I'd never opened it until I needed it for the strawberry batch last weeked. But now I read that it's very perishable and should have been refrigerated. Should Ithrow it out and get a powdered form? And I read Waldo's post about steaming strawberries to extract the juice. How does that work? I have a similar looking pot that I'm using for a primary on these one-gal batches. It came with a basket inside that has holes around the sides, but I didn't know what it was for. Is this a steamer pot? If so, how do I collect the juice? Finally, I've used Pastuer Red yeast for both of these trial batches, but I've been reading up on other yeasts as well. Apparently, you can use yeast that doesn't ferment completely dry, leaving a sweeter finished wine. Does this approach work, or should I just back-sweeten?
Sorry for the long novel and all the questions. Sometimes I get in the mood to write and I just can't seem to stop myself.
Ken